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Sunday, August 29, 2010

Dishonour

Whether it was a prize at the annual day function in school or in play-acting, they had always taken pride in her achievements.
Then why was she considered a disgrace to the family now?
'Why?'- A single word escaped from her lips as she struggled to free herself from his iron stranglehold.
'How dare you marry into another caste?' her father roared in answer.

P.S : Murdering your daughter in the name of fake honouror snatching away her right to decide the course of her life is the real act of disgrace....not only to a family or a community but the entire nation.

@Jidhu Jose: Honor killings have also been a part of so-called affluent or educated families. Even in my neighborhood a woman was stigmatized 'cause she married into another religion. The cure is not in education but in freeing the mind from prejudices.

I wonder who gives them the right to decide how two adults choose to live their lives...and honour killings are the worst kind of crime..these criminals should be made an example of...This really is a disgrace to our nation..something which makes our blood boil when we read it in the newspapers..yet it's rampant...

Me - I think I deserve the right to marry anyone I like.Dad - No. I am the captain of the ship. I will decide who you marry.Me- I am gonna live only once. Please let me have the right to choose once...Dad - You can choose what happens to your children. I am your Dad and I deserve the right.Me - :(

My Dad is an engineer and I am a doctor :( Education does nothing. One has to free the mind from prejudices.

You know I would like to sit down with these fathers mothers and brothers once and try to figure out their thought process...

They willfully deny the happiness of their son or daughter, harass them, abuse them, and may even take their lives.

All this for what? Ah yes... to protect their honor...

Yeah... almost forgot... that ones 'image' is so much more important than the happiness and wellbeing of a loved one... that hurting or even killing someone you have loved all your life is a better option than taking a stand against the evils of society... that the love of that loved one is less important than the 'respect' that you get from those random people who probably didnt care (or even know) about your existence until the time that your son/daughter violated your 'honor'... yeah... that makes perfect sense...

It is because of things like this still going on in our country that I feel a twinge of distaste when I make the assertion... Mera Bharat Mahan... but I have faith... things will change...

This reminds me of one of my friend, who instead of the family and the social pressure went against all of them and married the person she loved! We and other friends helped her, but she was the cone who had all the courage and who took the initiative! :)

To think that khap panchayats actually encourage these murderers... it's pathetic and shameful for the entire country. How can these families even think of taking the lives of their own daughters? Is this so-called "honor" more important than blood ties? I don't know where the solution lies...and I don't know if awareness alone can be a solution.

These people need to be culturally educated. No amount of formal education would help set things right for the numerous people who get killed or brought down because they fell in love and didn't care about religion or caste. The whole divide on such bases and the mentality of people needs to be changed. Unfortunately, that isn't practically possible, certainly not in the near future. If only there were ways to abolish religion and caste. Maybe then after a generation, things might be put right. It's sad that such changes would never actually happen.

It's hard to change a culture. Even when people recognize that something is wrong with their culture, they find it almost inconceivable to frame their thoughts in any way other than what their culture has taught them. It happens from the other side, too. Americans have a very hard time even imagining something like "honor killing," so we don't really understand just how bad some things are in India.

D2: you can't really abolish religion. If you successfully prevent people from learning about religion, they just make up their own--and it's usually much worse. That's more or less what happened in China during the Cultural Revolution, but there isn't space here to talk about that in the kind of detail it needs. Maybe it's possible to abolish "bad religion," but I would be wary of deciding what really was bad religion. . . .

india today finds itself at the crossroads of change both culturally and economically... and the change is coming too fast, too fast to handle for us... the result is we area confused nation... what they call honor killing and we call cold blooded murder is a result of that... its sad... really sad

completely agree with you on p.s part !i really don't understand why all love, care n affection changes to hate up to an extreme that they kill their daughter without having a second thought about it !!

@Anish: At the most what these parents can do is severe all contact with their children who have gone against their will... but killing them? That surely is unacceptable.

@Ramanathan Kannan: All I can say is I hope you're able to make your father see sense someday through repeated discussions.

@The Laughing Man: To such people marrying into a different caste or religion is like an unpardonable sin. How far do you think one can go to prevent such a thing from happening? murdering both bride n groom in cold blood just so the same thing is never repeated in their family...These notions are so deeply ingrained in their minds that it will take an awful lot of time and persuasion to make them see sense.

wisewit: But no matter which way I see it I think religion and caste divides are at the root of this problem. People belonging to a particular caste are considered to be superior to others. And there's also the case of the 'untouchables'. Although it has almost been eradicated from our country. We cannot accept a person from a separate country, community, religion or caste simply because we consider them different from us.

@Tavish: I'm not sure whether economic development has anything to do with this. If that was the case then by all means we should be going forward rather than receding back into the dark ages. Killings over issues such as marrying into another religion or gotra or caste cannot be tolerated. If this goes on we'll be labeled as a bunch of 'barbarians'.

@Deepa: It's hatred combined with the fear of losing their fake honor. Fear of being stigmatized by the society.